This is just one post in the Delta smelt Category

PCL Insider: Assembly Committee passes bad delta smelt bill

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 28, 2008 at 7:26 am

From IndyBay.org:

Bad news for the delta - Assembly committee passes SB 994, GUTTING PROTECTIONS FOR DELTA SMELT

Despite strong opposition from the environmental community and concern from fish biologists, SB 994 (Florez, Ashburn, Steinberg) received enough votes to pass out of the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks, and Wildlife this morning and is now headed to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.

SB 994 attempts to sidestep environmental protections for the threatened Delta Smelt, which have been in severe decline for the past eight years. If passed, the bill would create a loophole allowing water diverters to comply with endangered species protection laws without providing habitat restoration, water quality improvements, and necessary freshwater flows within the ailing Delta as required by those same laws. Instead, SB 994 would tie the hands of the Department of Fish and Game by requiring the department to issue necessary environmental permits as long as water diverters simply pay into a fund for a massive Delta Smelt hatchery.

The committee analysis includes a stinging criticism of the bill’s approach by fish biologist Dr. Peter Moyle, the foremost expert on Delta Smelt. “Trying to keep Delta Smelt going by raising them in hatcheries and releasing them is like trying to raise sheep in a drought-seared pasture surrounded by a forest full of hungry wolves,” explains Moyle.

When pressed this morning in committee about the lack of evidence that a Delta Smelt hatchery would actually help restore the species, Senator Florez responded that the bill’s intent was simply to establish an “interim” and “experimental” hatchery. Yet the bill has no sunset clause or time limitation, and it allows diverters to base compliance with environmental laws on the experimental hatchery.